112 Minn. 117 | Minn. | 1910
The plaintiff and appellant sought to enjoin the construction of a permánent dam across the natural outlet of Jackson lake in Blue Earth county. The county commissioners had begun to make the dam pursuant to chapter 104 of the Laws of 1907 (R. L. Supp. 1909, § 434-2), providing that the county board in any one year may appropriate. not to exceed $300 for erecting or maintaining sufficient dams or embankments upon or along the shores of the
Plaintiff, as a riparian owner, has shown such an interest in the controversy as to entitle her to a judicial determination of the questions raised, but has not shown a right to the relief sought. The law was constitutional. The controversy is primarily determined by the general law of waters. No riparian owner has a right to complain of improvements by the public whereby the water is maintained in the condition which nature has given it. “Aqua currit, et debet currere ut eurrere solabat.” Farnham, Waters, p. 1765. And see volume 1, c. 6. The law justified the maintenance of the lake at its natural and usual height and level. That height, necessarily more or less marked “upon the soil of the bed [of the lake, has] a character distinct from that of the banks in respect to vegetation as well as respects the nature of the soil itself.” Damages consequent thereon to riparian owners was damnum absque injuria, for which they were entitled to no compensation. Mitchell, J., in Re Lake Minnetonka Improvement, 56 Minn. 513, 58 N. W. 295, 45 Am. St. 494.
The question then arises whether the facts showed such a case, or one in which low lands, although occasionally overflowed, belonged to the riparian' owner, and could not be taken without due compensation. The trial court expressly found that the natural outlet of the lake had been for many years interfered with, sometimes lowered, sometimes raised; that the proposed dam will raise the water in the lake some eighteen inches, or to its usual stage, and that the facts brought the ease within the limits assigned to the
We conclude that, within the familiar rule on this subject, thef finding’s of the trial court must be affirmed.